After opening the 195455 campaign with two quick wins,
San Francisco lost its third game to UCLA (4740, in Westwood) before running
off 21 consecutive victories to finish the regular season first in the AP poll.

Led by guard K.C. Jones and center Bill Russell, the Dons
edged PCC champ Oregon State, 5756, in the West Regional final at Corvallis,
Ore., then went on to meet Tom Gola and defending champion La Salle in the NCAA
championship game in Kansas City. In a surprise move, USF coach Phil Woolpert
assigned the 6-1 Jones to cover the 6-7 Gola and K.C. outscored UPI's first
Player of the Year, 2416. Russell, meanwhile, scored 23 and pulled down 25
rebounds as the Dons beat the third-ranked Explorers easily, 7763, to end the
year at 281.

No.2 Kentucky entered the NCAA tournament at 222, but
was an eight point loser to Marquette in the semifinals of the East Regional.
ACC champ North Carolina State, 284 and fourth in the final AP poll, was on
probation for a year (recruiting violations) and ineligible for the NCAAs.

Sixth-ranked Duquesne, paced by first team All-Americans Si
Green and Dick Ricketts, captured its first NIT in eight tries.

Note: From 1956 through 1962, title was determined
by highest individual rebounds out of both teams total. Slacks average of
25.6 rebounds per game is an all-time record.

Notes


Si Green scored 33 points to lead Duquense to a 70-58 victory vs. Dayton in the
NIT Championship game.


USF won 26 straight games, en route to 55-game streak.

Apr 23 NBA adopts the 24 2nd shot clock rule.

Dec 30, 1954 The 24-second shot clock is used for
the first time in a professional basketball game.

1955 Jan 08 After 130 home college basketball
wins, Georgia Tech defeated Kentucky 59-58. It was the first Kentucky loss at
home since January 2, 1943.

San
Francisco comes of age

By JOE GERGEN For The Sporting News

When Bill Russell and Hal Perry first met at the University of San Francisco,
they discovered they had much in common. Not only were the two both black and
both Baptist in a predominantly white, Catholic environment, but the school's
basketball coach, Phi l Woolpert, had seen neither freshman play a game.
Furthermore, the scholarship offer from the Jesuit institution was the only one
each had received.

The fall of 1952 was not a time of great athletic vitality on the USF campus,
which crowned a hilltop near Golden Gate Park. The school recently had dropped
its football program and the basketball team, a National Invitation Tournament
champion in 19 49, had lost more games than it had won in its first two seasons
under Woolpert. And the Dons were handicapped by the absence of a campus gym.

Practice was conducted at nearby St. Ignatius High School or at a
neighborhood boys club or sometimes at a parish hall. It was to the high school
that Russell and Perry had reported the previous spring for what amounted to a
one-day audition.

Neither youngster knew anything about the university beyond its location --
and even that proved elusive to Russell, who got lost trying to find it.

Russell was a gawky athlete, a 6-foot-7 young man going on 6-9 1/2. He had
been a late bloomer at Oakland's McClymonds High School, excelling on defense
but serving as little more than a role player on a team of championship caliber.
Indeed, Russell scored more than 10 points only once in his scholastic career.

Fortunately for the player and the school, USF alumnus Hal DeJulio was in the
stands for a game between McClymonds and Oakland High. He enjoyed scouting area
high School games for prospects, and he attended this particular game to assess
Truman Bruce , the star of the Oakland team. Russell not only did a fine
defensive job on Bruce but also scored 14 points.

DeJulio recommended Russell to Woolpert, who set up a tryout that Russell
almost missed because he got lost.

"When I finally got there," he said, "I was in a daze from
frustration and nervousness, which was probably good because it numbed me.

"I don't remember anything about the workout except that I ran and
jumped without the ball a lot."

Afterward, Woolpert was noncommittal. The coach said he would be in touch.

Perry was a small man, just under 5-11. He was a star of his team in Ukiah,
north of San Francisco, but the school and the community also were small and the
level of competition nothing like that which abounded in the Bay Area. His high
school coach wrote to a number of college coaches in Perry's behalf. Only
Woolpert responded.

And so the guard, accompanied by his father, made the 125-mile trip to San
Francisco to display his skill with a basketball. Woolpert greeted him and
introduced him to a USF freshman named K.C. Jones, who proceeded to demonstrate
Perry's limitations.

After the workout, Woolpert sat with Perry and his father and patiently
listed seven or eight reasons why he would be unable to offer a scholarship. The
youngster was not intimidated. In addition to being a five-sport athlete, he was
the senior class president as well as the student body president at Ukiah High
School.

First, Perry rebutted all of Woolpert's arguments and then, standing to his
full height, he said, "Before you make this decision, please pray for
guidance."

On the way home, Perry's father attempted to console him after his subpar
performance.

"It doesn't matter," Perry replied. "I'm still going to get
the scholarship."

Two days later, he was offered tuition, room and board to attend USF. Russell
received a similar invitation in the mail. Those two non-recruits, along with
the 6-1 Jones, would form the nucleus of the greatest college team assembled to
that time.

But first, while Russell and Perry worked hard to develop their skills on the
freshman squad, Woolpert and the Dons struggled through a third successive
losing season in 1953. The pressure on the coach mounted the next year when
Jones, after one game , suffered a ruptured appendix. He did not return that
season.

Furthermore, Woolpert and Russell were at odds over the sophomore's attitude,
particularly in practice. And the Dons' other starters appeared more interested
in individual statistics than winning. The record of 14-7 was an improvement,
yet a disappoint ment.

It wasn't until the 1955 season that the team pulled together. Jones and
Russell, who had grown to an intimidating 6-9 1/2, both were in the starting
lineup. But the Dons weren't firing on all cylinders.

After trouncing Chico State in their season opener, the Dons didn't exactly
blitz Loyola of Los Angeles (USF won by nine) and then lost at UCLA. Woolpert's
solution was to elevate Perry to the first team.

The promotion proved to be a significant step, and not just in terms of
on-court success. It also meant San Francisco would have more black starters
than white starters, a most unusual arrangement at the time.

"It was never said, but you knew as a coach that you had to be aware of
the quota thing," Woolpert said.

The coach gambled that any ensuing criticism among alumni, boosters and the
media would be negated by winning. The Dons won immediately.

That very weekend, in a two-game series at the Cow Palace, San Francisco
handily defeated Oregon State and the same UCLA team it had stumbled against the
previous week.

Then the Dons left for the All-College Tournament at Oklahoma City and a test
of character. Upon arrival, they were informed that the blacks could not stay at
the downtown hotel reserved for the team. A meeting ensued at which every player
was granted a chance to speak.

Should the Dons be split, half at a hotel and half on the Oklahoma City
University campus? In what he termed his "crowning moment," Perry
advised against it.

"We are going to hang together as a team," he said. And that's what
USF did. The Dons' entire party stayed at the university.

And after it was over, after USF had won the holiday tournament, the Dons
celebrated at the otherwise empty dorm.

"Tonight," Perry said, "is the beginning of the dynasty."

No one was quite sure exactly what that meant, but it sounded good. United as
never before, and with Russell's well-timed leaps reshaping the sport, San
Francisco rolled over all opponents for the rest of the season, climbing slowly
in the national p olls.

When Kentucky, the early-season leader, was upset twice in January by Georgia
Tech, the Dons moved into the No. 1 position to stay.

Still, San Francisco was not an overwhelming favorite as it prepared for its
first Final Four. Even the elimination of No. 2-ranked Kentucky by Marquette in
Eastern Regional play offered no guarantees. Third-ranked La Salle had
devastated competition in its half of the Eastern bracket and boasted the
premier player in the country, Tom Gola.

Iowa and Colorado rounded out the field, the Hawkeyes accompanying La Salle
into the Eastern final and the Buffaloes joining USF in the Western title game.

Of the four national semifinalists, the Dons had survived the greatest scare
in the tournament. After rolling over West Texas State and Utah, USF was
severely challenged by Pacific Coast Conference champion Oregon State.

There were two major differences from the first meeting between the teams
back in December, a game the Dons won by 26 points. Swede Halbrook, a 7-3
center, was in the Beavers' lineup, and the NCAA regional game was scheduled for
Oregon State's home cou rt in Corvallis.

Jerry Mullen, USF's forward and captain, was hampered by a sprained ankle in
the rematch and USF did not dominate on the boards in its usual manner.

Despite timely shooting by Stan Buchanan, the Dons' other forward, Oregon
State had a chance to win at the end of the game, but Ron Robins' shot from the
corner hit the back rim. The top-ranked team escaped with a 57-56 victory.

La Salle struggled to beat Iowa in the first semifinal at Kansas City, but
San Francisco ended the suspense in the second game by taking a six-point lead
in the final three minutes of the first half and then coasting past Colorado,
62-50.

Now the NCAA Tournament had the ideal East-West matchup between the defending
champion and its primary challenger. While observers speculated on the outcome,
Woolpert planned a surprise.

Reasoning that Jones could compensate for a five-inch height differential
with his speed and quick hands, he assigned his best defensive player to Gola.

Such an alignment also enabled Russell to spend more time near the basket
rather than be drawn outside by the smooth La Salle star. It turned out to be a
masterful strategy.

Jones, a high-school football star and a marvelous athlete, disrupted the
Explorers' five-man rotating offense. He limited Gola, a three-time consensus
All-American, to 16 points and, displaying some uncharacteristically accurate
shooting from long r ange, scored 24. For all that, Russell was the major
difference.

Russell blocked shots time and again, grabbed 25 rebounds and scored 23
points, including 18 in the first half when the Dons broke open the game.
Russell played above the rim, steering some of his teammates' errant shots into
the basket and tipping i n others. USF won its first NCAA championship with
consummate ease, 77-63.

An obscure high school athlete three years earlier, Russell was honored as
the Final Four's outstanding player. Phog Allen, the Kansas coach who thought he
had seen everything in basketball, shook his head at the junior's performance.